The toughest notion I have found about the training of clients dogs has been that to make the dog into a brilliant hunting companion is a given and a right and never up for debate. And whilst I’ve almost guaranteed success after a dog spending two months successively with me, I am still shocked at the rate to which owners genuinely don’t understand how the entire process takes time. Just like us humans, we develop and learn things at different rates as individuals, so too do dogs, as they are also individuals. Genetically too, not every dog is the same, but even deeper than that, not every dog comes from good or great genetics. The old adage still holds true, you can’t make a silk purse from a pigs ear – and it couldn’t be truer. A well bred dog makes my life as the trainer much easier, and a blank slate of a dog makes it even easier to lay the correct foundation, and build a competent hunting companion from there. Sadly, other trainers or training fingerprints on a dog takes time to unlearn before I can even begin implementing my ways and practices. A young, well bred, genetically sound dog, that has zero training is a dream dog to work with for me. Unfortunately, most people bring me their dogs after trying out other trainers and this can be really laborious and challenging – and not to mention time consuming, with owners not understanding just how much time goes into unlearning the bad before I can even begin implementing my ways on the dog. Sometimes all I have is a month with a dog like this, a month that the first 2 weeks are often spent unlearning said bad habits, and then only start with my own ways. It’s incredibly frustrating and challenging as you are now on trial for the errors of others, and your reputation and name is at stake.
What follows is a great example of how genetics, a clean slate, patient owners who buy into my philosophy and how the dog related aspects can vary from dog to dog. I trained three litter mates; two sisters and a brother. The brother came to me later on, after having been trained at another trainer – notice I do not say by another trainer. He was competent at best. Well behaved to a point too, but generally well behaved. His wild bird work was limited, I could see this from the very first wild bird interaction on a walk I took him on. I knew what I had to work on from the get go. The two other sisters came to me as 6 month old pups. The one owner sent me the mother of these three pups and the one female he had kept, and the other owner sent me the other female pup and his other older female dog – not related. Both the mother of the pups belonging to the one owner – let’s call him Pete for ease of understanding – and the other older female dog from the other owner – let’s call this owner Jeff – were trained at another trainer. I assessed them in my own way that I do to gain my understanding as to where these dogs are and what I need to work on. The two pups I hardly stress about when they are young, blank canvases as I know apart from the owners creating any bad habits, they should be eager to please and easy to learn the way that I do things. I quickly saw that the mother of the pups belonging to Pete, had an excellent nose, was biddable, had excellent drive and wanted to please and listen – she just needed polishing around her birds which I have developed a very effective process for, and a bit of discipline in the sense that she just needed to know that she’s hunting with someone and not for herself – an easy fix. The other older female belonging to Jeff, was wild, had a high prey drive, an excellent nose, driven to hunt for days on end if needs be, but lacked polishing too, and was not patient around her game. Again, an easy fix in my mind as developing dogs around wild birds is my strength and what I enjoy most. Not to mention the only way to really develop classy pointing dogs. I will try and summarise things as best I can; I asked both owners to leave the pups in my hands for as long as they possibly could, to trust me, and I would all but guarantee their hunting success. After the first full month the owner of the mother and daughter duo had a hunt he was going on. I told him he could take the mother on the hunt, but not the young daughter. He agreed. The mother was around 8 years of age. I knew there was a difference in her from when she first arrived, so I was comfortable with her going. He called me on the Sunday on his return home and said he couldn’t believe the difference in her, and that all of his friends commented that it was the best that dog had ever performed in all their years of hunting with her. He told me I obviously know what I am doing and said to take my time with the puppy. A very long story short, I turned around that older female, the mother dog, completely, as well as Jeff’s other older female. In fact Jeff had booked a guided hunt with me on one of my concessions with a group of friends. Knowing all these dogs, I allowed them to hunt their dogs and I merely guide without my dogs. We had fantastic days shooting and that older dog of Jeff’s did some incredible work on wily Greywing and Redwing Francolin, to the point where his one friend said to Jeff, you better thank Chris, because that dog was one of the worst dogs I had ever seen hunting until now, she is quite literally brilliant, and a different dog. I felt good. But Jeff didn’t so much as ever thank or compliment the work. Such is the nature of this game. It’s unforgiving. As I said prior, it’s a forgone conclusion that you WILL turn every dog into a champion type of hunter. It just doesn’t work that way. All dogs are different. Back to the litter mate younger sisters though… Pete’s young female turned into an absolute hunting machine. I perfected and polished every aspect of her as a high class working GSP. She is athletic, strong, keen, and bold but is incredibly biddable too. We did a handover hunt, just Pete and his dogs with me at one to my concessions over a weekend. He couldn’t believe how good she was and how she was performing, at such a young age. Needless to say, Pete became someone I would even refer to as a friend, and a true gentleman. It’s incredibly rewarding to hear the compliments, or even just a thank you, when doing this sort of work. Most of the time you get no recognition or as I’ve made mention of prior, not even half a thank you. It’s hard, physical work too, day in, and day out. And I really put the yards in with any dog I train, in my own unique way of developing dogs. This is why they all bond with me so deeply and love being with me, or get excited at the mere sound of my vehicle approaching their home. Jeff’s young female also turned into an incredible hunter in her own right – different, as I mentioned prior, all dogs being individuals and further entrenching the fascinating way that even identical genetics can vary from sibling to sibling – some taking on traits from their dam or sire, sometimes taking a mixture of both, sometimes they’re throwbacks to grand sires or grand dams that we might not know, but all dogs are different. These two sisters being ‘genetically identical’ served as a very important reminder and reference point for me – but unfortunately, not many owners care to hear these intricacies or understand the whole a bit more in depth. Jeff’s young female just never was an enthusiastic retriever, and I do not partake in the harsh, even cruel force fetch methods that have become popular. I have a gentle ‘force’ fetch that works, as I have had success with it with various other dogs, including my own. But Jeff’s young pup hunts beautifully, she developed her prowess running and hunting with young Pointers of mine whilst getting her valuable mileage under her collar, so she learnt to hunt hard and cast wide, and learnt to seek out likely bird holding areas or covers. Things that a dog requires intelligence to do, but again are also intricacies lost to the general foot hunter who isn’t too concerned or interested in these niceties, other than filling his daily bird quota. Unfortunately in Jeff’s mind, because she’s a GSP, and isn’t an enthusiastic retriever she’s deemed a bit of a failure. And it is upsetting because she is the furthest thing from that. Her hunt, pattern, and bird finding and honouring of other dogs is right up there with the best GSP’s, but she just doesn’t want to retrieve much – well, mainly when with him… when I’ve had her with me and I’ve shot birds for her, we’ve had success. I feel I know why this is the case, but sometimes you have to let sleeping dogs lie, or in this case, let dogs not pick up the bird… if you know what I mean.
There will be more pieces that link to this subject to follow.
Always chasing the horizon.
Pictured: Pete’s mother and daughter duo working together as a brace on a find. Mother pointing, daughter backing.